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48 Hours

Did The Doctor Kill The Doctor?

26 Feb 2026

Transcription

Chapter 1: What led to the tragic death of Dr. Linda Gowdy?

12.265 - 30.145 Dr. Timothy Stryker

I always knew that I was going to be a doctor. My father's a doctor, my mother's a nurse, so it was always in my blood to be a doctor. I never questioned it. One of my attractions to Linda was that she was in a similar situation of being a very dynamic person with a very busy practice.

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30.646 - 38.695 Jerry Leone (District Attorney)

Linda was a passionate advocate. First and foremost, it was a dedication to her patients and especially high-risk OBGYN patients.

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39.029 - 44.796 Paul Dennett (Colleague of Dr. Gowdy)

She knew her stuff. She was dynamic, but she had this wonderful friendship with her patients.

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45.537 - 54.789 Dr. Timothy Stryker

I respected so much how she went that extra mile to really take care of her patients and do everything that needed to be done to help a mother have a healthy baby.

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54.809 - 61.837 Jerry Leone (District Attorney)

In 1993, Dr. Stryker and Dr. Gowdy had a relationship that lasted approximately four and a half to five years.

62.318 - 68.766 Dr. Timothy Stryker

We would go jogging together, and we had dinners together. We had so much to share and so much compatibility.

69.37 - 85.911 Jerry Leone (District Attorney)

Our office was notified on October 4th, 1993, it was a Monday, that there was a body found in a gray Saab in Lot A, which is on New England Medical Hospital. Investigation ensued. We realized very quickly who it was, that it was Dr. Linda Gowdy.

87.192 - 91.598 Paul Dennett (Colleague of Dr. Gowdy)

That was kind of the wave that went through the hospital, was, oh my God, it can't be true.

92.253 - 101.782 Dr. Timothy Stryker

We did speak on the phone that evening that she died because she stayed at the hospital. She had phoned me to tell me she wasn't coming over for dinner that night.

Chapter 2: What was the relationship between Dr. Gowdy and Dr. Timothy Stryker?

276.792 - 288.532 Mikhail Stryker (Wife of Dr. Stryker)

I think he's just a very sincere, extremely gentle and even delicate person. He at all times looks to do good to the people around him.

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288.592 - 309.874 Dr. Timothy Stryker

That might be one reason he decided to become a doctor. I just knew it from a very young age, that's what I wanted to do. You know, because it's my nature to want to help people. It was one thing he had in common with Lynn Goudy. She had so much dynamic energy. And she was, by all accounts, driven.

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310.334 - 324.793 Dr. Timothy Stryker

She earned top honors in high school and eventually went to medical school while working as a medical technician. She was a successful OB-GYN, specializing in high-risk pregnancies. She loved what she did.

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324.773 - 325.835 Paul Dennett (Colleague of Dr. Gowdy)

She was very good at it.

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326.116 - 329.824 Dr. Timothy Stryker

Paula Dennett is a nutritionist who worked closely with Dr. Gowdy.

330.204 - 345.837 Paul Dennett (Colleague of Dr. Gowdy)

She was new to the field, but you never thought she was just a rookie. You know, she knew what she was doing, and I'd say she was one of the more respected physicians there in terms of if you're having a problem or a complex pregnancy, Dr. Gowdy's the one to go to.

Chapter 3: How did the police investigation unfold after Dr. Gowdy's death?

349.58 - 356.998 Dr. Timothy Stryker

Lisa Zolot was one of Dr. Lynn Goudy's patients who noticed right away that there was something special about her.

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357.68 - 361.429 Paula Dennett (Colleague of Dr. Gowdy)

Lynn was very good at sixth sense, knowing when things were wrong.

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362.945 - 369.111 Dr. Timothy Stryker

On a routine visit, Dr. Gowdy had a sense that Lisa's unborn baby was in danger.

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369.472 - 385.008 Paula Dennett (Colleague of Dr. Gowdy)

She decided that I have the C-section right away because something was wrong. And after she made the incision, there was bleeding everywhere. She just had a sick sense that something was wrong. And she was right. Without her, my daughter wouldn't be here. My daughter's name is Lindsay. Basically, we named her after Lynn.

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385.709 - 389.352 Dr. Timothy Stryker

From that day forward, Lisa and Lynn became good friends.

389.953 - 393.874 Paula Dennett (Colleague of Dr. Gowdy)

We just clicked. It was just one of those things. So we just became friends, it was easy.

396.717 - 410.652 Dr. Timothy Stryker

Dr. Lynn Goudy made a lot of friends around the hospital, including Dr. Timothy Stryker. So we met over lunches at the hospital and we started to share patients because I would refer patients to her as a gynecologist.

410.852 - 421.504 Paul Dennett (Colleague of Dr. Gowdy)

It became apparent that they were friendly first. He was attractive, she was pretty. We could have just naturally evolved into something.

421.889 - 436.189 Dr. Timothy Stryker

Before long, their work relationship did evolve into something more. We would sit and read together at night and do movies, and she got me into skiing, and then I got her into scuba diving and the Caribbean trips that we took together.

Chapter 4: What were the key pieces of evidence against Timothy Stryker?

489.747 - 515.536 Dr. Timothy Stryker

And she was actually the one that made the reservations for the trip. And it was her idea. She was very happy about it. But Lynn Goudy never took the trip because just weeks before they were to leave, she had a dream. In this dream, she had this vision of being in a car, I think it was, on the side of a mountain and driving around and then seeing a plane go crashing to the side of the mountain.

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516.237 - 523.665 Dr. Timothy Stryker

And she took this as some possible bad omen that perhaps, you know, we might have a plane crash.

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523.831 - 544.719 Paula Dennett (Colleague of Dr. Gowdy)

And I don't know if her sixth sense kicked in at that point, which wouldn't surprise me, that she had a premonition, whether it was precognitive, that something bad was going to happen on that trip. So what did Lynn plan to do about her dream? She wasn't going on that vacation. She had thought that it wasn't a good idea and that she was not going to go.

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545.26 - 583.497 Dr. Timothy Stryker

But that's not what Tim Stryker says. Well, was she going to go on that trip? Yes. She never said that she wasn't going. Lynn's dream, her plans, and premonitions were about to become more important than anyone could have imagined. No one should have been surprised when Dr. Lynn Gowdy and Dr. Tim Stryker became an item.

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584.438 - 607.332 Dr. Timothy Stryker

They were both successful physicians, active, adventurous, and with a lot in common. But after four years together, they were starting to drift apart. I guess towards the end of the relationship, you know, there may have been some stagnation because she was getting a little burned out from how hard she was working.

607.801 - 619.08 Dr. Timothy Stryker

But Lynn's friend, Lisa Zolot, says it wasn't just Lynn's work that was burning her out. It was also Stryker, who Lisa says was controlling and self-centered.

619.1 - 631.581 Paula Dennett (Colleague of Dr. Gowdy)

It was very rigid and very predictable in his lifestyle. He picked what time you ate, where you went, when you left. You know, he always controlled her totally. It was no changing him. It was that way or the highway.

632.523 - 663.559 Dr. Timothy Stryker

Stryker says Lynn's friends and family have been making up things about him ever since she died. Are you a flexible man? I have to be flexible to be available when a patient has chest pain or to be available when somebody's traumatized. What about in your personal life? Again, I have to be flexible with my kids, with my wife. And, you know, so it's, again, this is a story they tried to tell.

664.214 - 672.621 Dr. Timothy Stryker

Whatever the cause, Lynn's friends believe she was getting ready to break up, even as she and Stryker were getting ready to go on that Caribbean vacation.

Chapter 5: What claims did Stryker make regarding the circumstances of Dr. Gowdy's death?

934.204 - 946.159 Dr. Timothy Stryker

The attack on Lynn was so brutal that Dr. Kessler found injuries at 24 separate places on her body. How much do you think Dr. Gowdy suffered?

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946.499 - 947.762 Unknown

I think she suffered a good bit.

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948.223 - 960.289 Paul Dennett (Colleague of Dr. Gowdy)

She was so full of life, why would this happen? That was the question, was why? And then how could it happen? And then I think the who came after.

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978.443 - 996.987 Dr. Timothy Stryker

You know, when she died was, initially I was stunned, but then after that, for me, it was just sadness. He may have been stunned, he may have been sad, but police were still eager to talk to Dr. Tim Stryker immediately after they discovered the body of his girlfriend, Dr. Lynn Gowdy.

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997.889 - 1015.069 Dr. Timothy Stryker

I was actually called in to speak with the detective right there on the spot, and they asked me, you know, who do you think could have killed her? Of course, it didn't take long at all for police to start focusing on the man they thought did it, the usual suspect, the boyfriend, Dr. Stryker himself.

1015.891 - 1028.312 Jerry Leone (District Attorney)

The cause of death being manual strangulation, in combination with a lot of other factors and evidence that we've developed, led us to believe and continues to lead us to believe that Linda knew her killer.

1028.697 - 1051.684 Dr. Timothy Stryker

District Attorney Jerry Leone says detectives quickly learned about the problems Lynn and Stryker were having, even that argument witnesses reported about the scuba trip. The relationship had been described as sometimes rocky, sometimes volatile. In plain English, I mean, was he violent to her? I don't want to characterize Timothy Stryker.

1052.17 - 1068.12 Jerry Leone (District Attorney)

You know, in that way, what we know to be true is that Dr. Stryker and Dr. Gowdy, during the course of their relationship, had some physical confrontations. And at times, it resulted in some injury to Linda.

1070.003 - 1091.806 Dr. Timothy Stryker

Stryker says he and Lynn had the kind of problems many couples have. And there was a time where she got very angry in my kitchen because I called her a pea brain. And she had a temper tantrum. There was a cup of peas and a cup of potatoes and a cup of corn. And here she was just throwing these at the walls at my paintings.

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